Things to Avoid When Holding an Open House | Real Estate

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This weekend was national open house weekend. I had the opportunity to see an open house go wrong in a million dollar neighborhood, so I'm going to share some pointers to help your open house go smoothly.

1. Ensure that there are no malfunctions with the home. A defective air conditioner ruins the experience for everyone including the agent. You do not want the agent to be in a bad mood!

2. Have an agent who will not push prizes, giveaways, or follow prospective buyers as they look at the house. The idea is to make everyone comfortable and the way to do that is by making all information readilly available and be available to answer questions.

3. Have drinks and/or snacks on hand, especially on a hot afternoon. At a minimum, bottles icewater and soda is a must.

4. Stage the exterior to the surrounding neighborhood. If you are an agent, please do not park a Ford Pinto in front of a $750,000 home. If you have an older car at least park it in the garage. Do not allow the first thing a prospective buyer sees to be a car that says "I am a part-time REALTOR".

Overall just use common sense. Hopefully you all had a great national open house weekend.